One intervention that I can suggest for New York City is utilizing what we know about heat to reduce heating costs thereby preventing the need for heating systems upgrades. In particular, if you examine tall (generally older) NYC apartment buildings in the winter, you can see that a lot of the upper apartments have their windows open. This is because in older buildings, each apartment is heated equally. While this seems like it makes sense in pursuit of equality and fairness, it doesn’t make too much sense, as heat rises. Therefore, a lot of the heat from the lower apartments will accumulate in the upper apartments. As a result of this heat accumulation, many residents will keep their apartment windows open throughout the winter. If we alter our heating systems, (a small change that will likely only cost labor hours) we can save a ton of money on annual heating expenses, heating system maintenance, and the purchase of new heating systems.
We could use some of the money each building saves on heating to create living walls for the outsides of these buildings. We could use naturally climbing vines to cover the outside of apartment buildings. The vine leaves would save energy on cooling in the winter, while producing oxygen and consuming carbon dioxide. Additionally, since the leaves would fall off in the winter, they would expose the facades of the apartment buildings, thereby allowing the sun to reach the buildings and heat them, saving further energy expenses.
Lastly, we could cover building roofs with solar panels to produce energy. While this is generally a costly process, as it grows more popular, it will become less costly. Additionally, given the prior changes made to tall apartment buildings, the same number of solar panels would have a greater impact on energy production/consumption. Therefore, it is conceivable that we could use fewer solar panels than currently estimated, thereby making the cost of installation lower, leaving us money to spend on even more savings and efficiencies. Here we see the validity of Amory Lovins’ theory of breaking point where if we spend enough we will save so much that it will be justified.
